An omnipresent drive, Rihanna has managed to be inescapable for the reason that launch of her eighth and most up-to-date studio album Anti in 2016, whereas additionally being perpetually hounded about when her grand return to music would lastly arrive. For the primary few years following the report, the singer’s trajectory adopted the everyday path: She put out the mission, promoted the singles, and went on tour. She was celebrating her strongest physique of labor but and simply so occurred to select up some magnificence and trend ventures alongside the best way with the institution of the Fenty model, after which years glided by and no follow-up album materialized.
“Steadiness is considered one of my largest challenges and at all times has been,” Rihanna instructed Vogue final yr, proper across the time that she was making ready to welcome her first baby to the world, a child boy with A$AP Rocky. “Now there’s one other human being coming into play, it modifications what meaning once more. Nonetheless, I’ve companies that aren’t going to run themselves.”
However in a manner, Rihanna’s enterprise as a musician has been primarily working itself for the higher a part of the previous half-decade. Her forthcoming efficiency on the Tremendous Bowl LVII halftime present will unquestionably function hit singles from Anti and those who got here earlier than it, which made the singer considered one of pop music’s brightest shining stars, alongside the one-off collaborations that served as reminders of her endurance. She has remained ubiquitous even when the musical aspect of her profession is on autopilot.
“I’m taking a look at my subsequent mission utterly otherwise from the best way I had wished to place it out earlier than,” Rihanna instructed Vogue. “I believe this manner fits me higher, loads higher. It’s genuine, it’ll be enjoyable for me, and it takes loads of the strain off.”
Rihanna insisted final yr that the halftime present wouldn’t double as a promise for brand new music. However her Tremendous Bowl look can be the proper catalyst for a comeback extra extravagant than the ballads she contributed to the Black Panther: Wakanda Endlessly soundtrack final November. Forward of the efficiency as we prepare for her main return to the stage, right here’s a timeline of the singer’s post-Anti musical check-ins.
September 2016: Rihanna Receives the Video Vanguard Award on the MTV Video Music Awards
If it seems that Rihanna has been bluffing, and the Tremendous Bowl really is previous her official return to the album-making enviornment, there couldn’t have been a extra full circle second to restart the pop spectacle machine.
In September 2016, Rihanna took the stage on the MTV Video Music Awards to flip the standard 15-minute Video Vanguard Award efficiency construction on its head. The singer helmed 4 separate performances all through the evening, her discography victory lap that includes medleys of her largest hits.
The evening’s setlist included “Don’t Cease the Music,” “Solely Lady (Within the World),” “We Discovered Love,” and “The place Have You Been” in its first set. “Impolite Boy,” “What’s My Title,” and “Work” rounded out the second set adopted by the third that includes “Wanted Me,” “Pour it Up,” and “Bitch Higher Have My Cash.” Closing out the 4 performances, Rihanna ran by way of a ballad-driven part with “Keep,” “Diamonds,” and “Love on the Mind.”
February 2017: Rihanna Assists Future on “Egocentric”
Future’s sixth studio album Hndrxx arrived on Feb. 24, 2017 and inside 4 days, its Rihanna-assisted lower “Egocentric” was deemed the mission’s official lead single. Quite than thematically constructing on Future’s personal auto-tuned lure releases, the report recalled the tenderness of the pair’s first collaboration: Unapologetic‘s “Loveeeeeee Music” from 2012.
April 2017: Rihanna Steals the Present on Kendrick Lamar’s “Loyalty”
Within the music video for “Loyalty,” the second single from Kendrick Lamar’s fourth studio album Rattling, Rihanna simply giggles and appears on whereas the rapper throws knuckle-bruising punches in her protection. “Inform me who you’re loyal to,” she directs at the beginning of her verse. Clearly, like the remainder of us, his reply was her.
“Loyalty” earned Rihanna her ninth Grammy Award win, this time for Greatest Rap/Sung Efficiency. The award felt, on the time, like an inadequate corrective from the Recording Academy, which nominated the singer for eight awards the prior yr — together with Greatest City Up to date Album for Anti — however awarded her none.
June 2017: Rihanna Unleashes “Wild Ideas”
When DJ Khaled flipped a pattern of Carlos Santana’s hit “Maria Maria” for “Wild Ideas,” Rihanna was the proper artist to deliver the sultry summer time sound to life. Showing alongside Bryson Tiller, the singer offered a problem within the very first verse: “I don’t know in the event you might take it.” Her most profitable single since going head-to-head with Drake on “Work” a yr prior, “Wild Ideas” was an early indication that Rihanna wouldn’t be greater than a radio station away, even throughout her off-years. In February 2018, Rihanna would take the stage on the Grammy Awards for the primary dwell efficiency of “Wild Ideas.”
November 2017: Rihanna Exhibits Out on N.E.R.D.’s “Lemon”
N.E.R.D., the music group Pharrell Williams fashioned alongside Chad Hugo and Shay Haley, hadn’t launched music in additional than seven years once they began teasing their comeback album No One Ever Actually Dies in 2017. Intent on making a grand return, the trio tapped Rihanna for the report’s first single “Lemon.”
Pharrell had initially created the track for Diddy round 2014 or 2015. “We maintain onto beats that we really feel like are particular. It’s like wine, it solely will get higher with time if it’s good,” he stated when the track was launched. “Rih lower it, she lower the second half and it was going to be for her.” Contrasting her fast-paced verse with the track’s punk-inspired beat, Rihanna matched the power with an attitude-spewing rap.
July 2018: A Producer Reveals Rihanna is Sitting on 500 Songs for a Secret Dancehall Album
Since 2018, rumors have been swirling round a few potential full-length dancehall album from Rihanna. Assume: a complete album of “Work”-adjacent songs with out Drake’s fake accent. Just a few months after the singer briefly talked about the mission in a Vogue interview, producers near the mission revealed to Rolling Stone that it had really been within the works for greater than a yr — and in that point Rihanna had amassed round 500 songs for it.
“They’re solely selecting 10 data,” one dancehall producer shared anonymously, explaining that there have been a number of writers and producers within the combine. “They’ve been having writing camps and attempting to maintain them quiet for nearly a yr and a half now. I’ve been flying to Miami, flying to L.A., chopping data nonstop for this mission.”
November 2018: Rihanna Makes Trump Cease the Music With Stop-and-Desist
Rihanna is aware of that everybody is clinging to the crumbs of her previous releases in her absence, however she wasn’t going for “Don’t Cease the Music” serving because the soundtrack to Donald Trump’s Chattanooga rally in 2018. “Me nor my folks would ever be at or round a kind of tragic rallies,” Rihanna tweeted forward of the cease-and-desist Trump’s White Home counsel obtained.
“Trump’s unauthorized use of Ms. Fenty’s music… creates a misunderstanding that Ms. Fenty is affiliated with, linked to or in any other case related to Trump,” the letter learn. “As you might be or must be conscious, Ms. Fenty has not supplied her consent to Mr. Trump to make use of her music. Such use is due to this fact improper.”
March 2019: Rihanna’s Deep Reduce Demos Resurface on Unauthorized Album
Rihanna made a brand new debut on the Apple Music and iTunes charts in 2019, however not with an precise new album. That March, a mission titled Angel was uploaded by a consumer known as “Fenty Fantasia” that includes a decade price of demos and leaks that by no means made their solution to her official catalog. Nonetheless, in hopes that there was some fact within the music, sufficient folks listened that the report reached Quantity 67 on the iTunes world albums chart.
“As a result of modifications in music distribution and the expertise of distribution and consumption, these sorts of leaks, whether or not secret or not, are way more extra more likely to occur than ever,” Larry Miller, director of the music enterprise program at New York College’s Steinhardt Faculty of Music, instructed Rolling Stone in 2019. Quick ahead 4 years, and now new AI expertise with the power to control any singer’s voice is getting used to create new songs from scratch.
Could 2019: Rihanna Provides Her Dancehall Album a Placeholder Title
Practically a yr after behind-the-scenes particulars about Rihanna’s in-the-works dancehall report surfaced — the one she declined to touch upon on the time — she supplied followers a little bit of hope by taking over their recommended album title as a placeholder.
“Up to now it’s simply been R9, because of the Navy,” she instructed T Journal. “I’m about to name it that most likely, ’trigger they’ve haunted me with this ‘R9, R9, when is R9 popping out?’ How will I settle for one other identify after that’s been burned into my cranium?”
Rihanna additionally clarified that Drake won’t be featured on the mission. “Not anytime quickly, I don’t see it taking place,” she shared about probably collaborating with him once more. “Not on this album, that’s for positive.”
September 2019: Rihanna Performs in Savage x Fenty Vogue Week Present
Rihanna’s trend and wonder ventures below the Fenty model have remained deliberately separate from her music profession. Nonetheless, she made a little bit of an exception throughout the first high-scale manufacturing Savage x Fenty Present, which streamed solely on Amazon Prime Video. Rihanna took the stage on the occasion to not showcase her vocal expertise, however her efficiency abilities.
Showing as a mannequin and dance performer, Rihanna left the music to the expertise she booked for the evening: Halsey, Migos, DJ Khaled, Large Sean, Fats Joe, Fabolous, Tierra Whack, and A$AP Ferg. Since then, she has welcomed to the annual present Unhealthy Bunny, Miguel, Ella Mai, Jazmine Sullivan, Normani, Burna Boy, Anitta, and extra.
September 2019: Rihanna Performs “Lemon” on the Diamond Ball
Just some days after her Savage x Fenty dance efficiency second, Rihanna turned her mic on on the 2019 Diamond Ball, the all-star gala she had hosted yearly to lift funds for her Clara Lionel Basis. Inviting DJ Khaled, Megan Thee Stallion, and Pharrell Williams as performers, the singer popped up for the first-ever dwell efficiency of “Lemon” alongside Pharrell.
“Alright guys, all my followers, I really like you — again up slightly bit,” Rihanna instructed the fervent crowd scrambling to seize the uncommon look. “Give the lady some house.” In alternate for his or her cooperation, she ran by way of a couple of bars of “Lemon,” shifting by way of the viewers and onto the stage.
October 2019: Rihanna Reveals She Turned Down Tremendous Bowl Halftime Present Provide
Rihanna just lately revealed that there are 39 variations of her Tremendous Bowl halftime present setlist. Boiling her expansive discography down for a 13-minute set is difficult sufficient by itself, however the singer has had a while to actually give it some thought since this isn’t the primary occasion by which she’s been supplied the big-time efficiency slot.
In a 2019 Vogue interview, Rihanna revealed that she declined a proposal to carry out on the Tremendous Bowl in each 2018 and 2019 in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick. “I couldn’t dare do this,” she stated on the time. “For what? Who positive aspects from that? Not my folks. I simply couldn’t be a sellout. I couldn’t be an enabler. There’s issues inside that group that I don’t agree with in any respect, and I used to be not about to go and be of service to them in any manner.”
Now that she’s modified her thoughts about what taking the halftime present stage might imply for her, Rihanna is framing the choice as a possibility for large-scale illustration. “That’s a giant a part of why that is essential for me to do that present: illustration,” she just lately instructed Apple Music. “Representing for immigrants. Representing for Black girls all over the place. That’s key for folks to see the probabilities.”
She added: “It’s a great distance from house, proper? It’s an exquisite journey that I’m on. I might have by no means guessed that I might have made it right here, so it’s a celebration of that. I’m actually excited to have Barbados on the Tremendous Bowl stage.”
March 2020: Rihanna Makes Uncommon Look on “Imagine It” with PartyNextDoor
The listing of people that have been capable of snag Rihanna appearances on their songs since 2016 is brief. However PartyNextDoor has a powerful observe report with penning hits for the singer, having helmed “Work,” “Intercourse With Me,” and “Wild Ideas.” It got here all the way down to the wire, with Rihanna not sending her vocals in till simply days earlier than the track was launched, however he ultimately scored her first musical look in three years on his single “Imagine It.”
Teaming up with the singer as a lead artist and never only a songwriter was key to his overarching musical mission. “It doesn’t make me completely satisfied,” he instructed Rolling Stone in 2016 about writing hits for different artists. “I’m on the lookout for pleasure. [“Work”] is a second for Rihanna and Drake. I need to make investments time in creating moments for myself.”
April 2022: Lil Nas X Revives, Then Instantly Kills, Hope for Rihanna Collab
Rihanna was as soon as the queen of Twitter clapbacks, however Lil Nas X has since ascended to the throne. Nobody has been capable of wield trolling and riling followers up fairly like him, so they need to have identified one thing was up when the rapper teased an look from Rihanna on the deluxe version of his debut album Montero.
Not solely was there not even a millisecond of Rihanna vocals ready to be launched, the deluxe model of the album didn’t exist in any respect. Earlier than everybody received so excited, they need to have checked the calendar. “Y’all taking these April fools jokes just a bit too far,” one fan wrote on Twitter.
September 2022: Rihanna Proclaims Tremendous Bowl Headlining Present
Third time’s the attraction. After beforehand turning down two provides to carry out on the Tremendous Bowl, Rihanna gave the inexperienced mild in September 2022, asserting her first dwell efficiency in over 5 years. The general public announcement got here when the singer shared a photograph of simply her proper hand holding up a soccer.
Since she final turned down Tremendous Bowl halftime provides, Jay-Z’s Roc Nation has taken over manufacturing of the Tremendous Bowl halftime present; Rihanna has been signed to Roc Nation since 2014. Realizing the gig would get her followers’ hopes up, the singer issued a warning in an interview following the announcement: “Tremendous Bowl is one factor. New music is one other factor. Do you hear that followers?”
November 2022: Rihanna Releases First Music as a Lead Artist in Seven Years
Rihanna’s assertion in regards to the Tremendous Bowl not being a precursor to new music was barely deceptive, as a result of its announcement did arrive simply earlier than she would share her first two releases as a lead artist in seven years: “Born Once more” and “Raise Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Endlessly.
“We knew she was at some extent in her life as effectively the place she was specializing in various things — you realize, specializing in enterprise, motherhood, which is a giant theme in our movie,” director Ryan Coogler instructed The Hollywood Reporter on the time. “So we had been holding out hope that possibly it might work out and, boy, did it.”
January 2023: Rihanna Up For Greatest Authentic Music on the Golden Globes, Earns First Oscars Nomination
“Raise Me Up” arrived as the primary official single from the Black Panther: Wakanda Endlessly soundtrack, whereas “Born Once more” performed throughout the movie’s closing credit. “Raise Me Up” additionally earned Rihanna her first-ever Golden Globes nomination for Greatest Authentic Music.
Precisely one month after the Tremendous Bowl, the singer will face off for Greatest Authentic Music on the 2023 Oscars. She’s nominated towards Girl Gaga and Bloodpop for “Maintain My Hand” from High Gun: Maverick; Dianne Warren for “Applause” from Inform It Like a Girl; David Byrne, Son Lux, and Mitski for “It is a Life” from The whole lot All over the place All at As soon as; and Kala Bhairava, M. M. Keeravani, and Rahul Sipligunj for “Naatu Naatu” from RRR.
January 2023: Rihanna Documentary Director Reveals Movie Is Simply Ready on Her Approval
Director Peter Berg first started engaged on a documentary with Rihanna whereas she was within the strategy of engaged on Anti. First, it was slated for a 2017 launch. Then, in 2018, Berg instructed Slash Movie that the film must be out inside two months. Now, 5 years later, the director has stated the documentary is able to go, however they’re nonetheless ready for an important half: Rihanna’s approval.
“Ready for her to approve it,” Berg instructed The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s accomplished and bought, and Amazon’s prepared. She’s a perfectionist, so we hold including. It’s been six and a half years of filming, so, yeah, it’s prepared to return out. We’re simply ready on her to say, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ I don’t know. Perhaps it’ll be a 10-year mission.”
He added that the documentary has grown over time as Rihanna has explored numerous endeavors exterior of music. “When Rihanna requested me to make a doc, I assumed she was joking,” he stated. “My work tends to be a bit extra masculine, at the least on the floor. However this has allowed me to dip out and in of her life whereas I’m doing different issues. I’ve cherished it — watching her within the studio, seeing her flip Fenty into this billion-dollar entity and, now, being a mother. It’s such an enriching expertise, I don’t actually care how lengthy it takes.”
February 2023: Rihanna Bowl
All 17 years of Rihanna’s profession will probably be condensed right into a 13-minute epic at Tremendous Bowl LVII. Throughout a latest press convention forward of the efficiency, the singer mirrored on the defining eras of her profession that led her to this second, and addressed the place she is perhaps heading subsequent.
“It’s going to be a celebration of my catalog in one of the simplest ways we might have put it collectively,” she instructed Apple Music, including: “Musically, I’m feeling open. I’m feeling open to exploring, discovering, and creating issues which can be new, issues which can be totally different, issues which can be off — bizarre. Won’t ever make sense to my followers. I simply need to play. I need to have enjoyable. I need to have enjoyable with music.”
In an interview with Rolling Stone, musical director Adam Blackstone broke down his and Rihanna’s strategy to crafting the proper halftime present setlist. “Rihanna is aware of that her profession has expanded totally different sonic palettes, from EDM to pop to hardcore hip-hop to ballads,” he stated. “We’re arising with the setlist collectively as a result of all people who’s a Rihanna fan has their totally different moments of who Rihanna is to them, and what every track means to them as effectively. We need to attempt to give slightly bit to all people.”